I'm going to start with Garage Band for recording my music (because my Mac Pro and RME Fireface 400 audio interface purchase will break the bank) and will work my way 'up' to Logic, I think. Or I might go for Logic Express first, depending on how much better it is than Garage Band.

I'd like to be able to export .WAV's so that I can take those over to my friend's PC and he/we can import the tracks into his audio sequencing program. I know that Garage Band exports to/through itunes, but does this mean that one cannot export the tracks as separate .WAV files?

GVDV

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Use the "share" function in your top menu to share to iTunes. A bounce down of your composition in GarageBand will be sent to iTunes as a AIFF file. In iTunes convert the tune to a WAV under the advanced section of the preferences menu.

This is the only way to grab a WAV file out of what you've composed. If you're getting serious about making music, upgrade to Apple Logic Express which will allow you to master to most file formats including WAV directly. Unless you have this king of app, I would say iTunes is the best place to get the file into the desired format.

Converting from iTunes is most definitely not the only way you can change formats. Switch is a fine program and it's free and it handles m4a and aiff and a multitude of other formats and will output into a variety of other formats as well.

There is actually a very easy workaround for this problem.
If you want to import individual audio tracks from Garageband onto a PC, just save the Garageband file onto the PC.
Windows will see it as a zip file/folder, even with the file extension .band . Open that zip folder and within the Media subfolder are all your audio recordings, as AIFF files.
If your software won't import AIFF files, Audacity from http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ will convert them for free!
Richard

I don't use GarageBand, but here is a general time saving tip if other posters are right about it exporting AIFF to iTunes: try just giving your friend an AIFF. I don't know what software you friend is using on Windows, but in any of the teaching I was (unfortunately) forced to do in Windows-based music studios I have been able to open both AIFF and WAV without a problem. Also, any of the Windows users I have collaborated with have been able to open AIFFs I have sent them.

Now I am not claiming to have been exposed to all Windows audio software, so maybe I'm wrong and your friend can't deal with AIFF, but really, there is no reason modern audio software shouldn't be able to handle both (no SD2 on Windows software sounds more likely). But if I'm wrong, sorry for the wasted post.

If he can deal with AIFFs, make sure he doesn't save and send you AIFC files--I had a friend doing that to me once. On the same note, stay away from RIFF WAV if you can, because like AIFC, they are both compressed formats.

And as Richard said, either way, you should have Audacity in your toolkit--it seems to be the most flexible software on any platform I have seen for opening audio files in that it even will open some improperly saved files and some interleaved surround sound files that I could not open (i.e. Digital Performer [pre-6 at least] doesn't like interleaved multichannel AIFF made in MaxMSP, but Audacity does not complain).

GB doesn't do WAVs, but there are better alternatives than suggested above.

GB does export AIFFs (Apple lossless) which will play on many systems, by creating a song (Any podcast voice tracks will have to be hidden, as will special images etc.). Select Share > "Send SONG [emphasis added] to iTunes" to make an AIFF file. If it tells you something about a podcast, it won't make the AIFF.

Then, a more streamlined method of export would be to use iTunes (which comes up automatically with the exported song highlighted), right click, and choose "Convert to MP3", which is, despite its shortcomings, probably the best supported audio format. Done!

I found Gargage Band AIF files while in Flash and importing to Library. In the import dialog box an arrow appears next to the .band file. Clicking on that I found AIF files in the media folder. I was able to import.

after selecting "show package contents", look in the folder "media". the audio files are in .aif (for real instrument tracks at least, not sure about other stuff) but i believe you can convert these to .wav (does the program Switch do this?)

after selecting "show package contents", look in the folder "media". the audio files are in .aif (for real instrument tracks at least, not sure about other stuff) but i believe you can convert these to .wav (does the program Switch do this?)